Images - What You See is Not What You Get
by betawho
Summary: River and the Doctor need some help, and find it from a most unexpected source...


(This story was written for Cheyenne who is going through some tough times, in response to a request on DeviantART.)

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They were pinned down. There was a cement canyon filled with crystal shards on one side of them, and a petrified forest of tangled, sharp branches on the other.

River's gun was nearly out of charge and the Doctor's sonic had been knocked out of his hand and into the canyon, when a stray beam had sheered off a petrified branch.

"This has been _such_ an interesting date," River sniped, as the local leonines closed in. They were tall, gaunt creatures with long tawny manes, sharp teeth and flat eyes.

"You better think of something, Sweetie. This is my last grenade." River flipped up the top of the metal tube in her hand and threw it over the petrified bush they were using for cover.

"You carry explosive lipstick?" he asked, as the blast scattered the leonines. They regrouped all too quickly. Bristling with aggression, hair and fur standing up, spikey and wild.

"Doesn't everyone?" River asked.

The petrified bush over them exploded in a hail of concentrated laser fire.

River felt her foot slipping. She stared down into the canyon. Razor sharp shards glinted in the sun. Scintilating all the colors of the rainbow. Beautiful, but deadly.

She slid. She expected to be sliced to shreds any minute, she could already feel the warmth of her own blood.

The Doctor grabbed her wrist.

One hand clutched onto the rim of the embankment, his feet scrabbled on the slick cement. River held still, trying not to make him lose him his grip. Slowly he pulled her back up.

But they could both hear the snarls of the leonines approaching. River gripped the curb, determined to go down fighting. At least to protect the Doctor's back as he ran.

Laser bolts continued to fire at them. River cursed and lost her grip as the fingers of one hand were singed when a shot blew a chunk out of their handholds.

The Tardis was beyond the petrified forest. The canyon curved around cutting off their retreat to the rear, and there were at least 30 leonines approaching from the front.

"Well, Doctor," River said, giving him a rueful smile. "It was nice knowing you."

He scrabbled in his pockets with one hand, objects falling out like multi-shaped rain, bouncing into the canyon below.

"Don't give up yet," he said. "I'm bound to have something..."

A savage leonine head thrust down at them, bloody teeth, savage claws, snarling hatred...

River reached up and grabbed her by the ear, yanking her down past them into the canyon below. There was a screeching scream, then an abrupt stop.

"River," the Doctor looked at her, disappointed.

"It's either them or us, Sweetie."

River started to pull herself up over the edge, a militant look in her eye, a look not unlike the leonines. Her own mane of blond hair bristled with anger, her pantherish muscles bunching and gleaming with sweat, ready to fight.

He held up a hand as if he wanted to pull her back down, prevent her from doing this thing, from becoming the very thing she'd been brainwashed into thinking she was all her life.

"No," his voice was drowned out by the snarls from above, the rest of the group had gathered to attack.

River was only halfway up, vulnerable. He struggled to pull himself up beside her, ready to die with her, rather than let her fight alone.

The leonines charged. Guns silent, and knives out, eager to be in close on the kill.

The Doctor gulped, and rolled up onto the verge beside River, tumbling like a newborn cub. Before he could get his limbs untangled and stand, his hearts beating doubletime in his chest, a light flashed across the crowd of advancing leonines.

They slowed and stumbled. The white light blinded them, they pawed at the glare, forcing it away from their eyes, snarling, but not stopping.

A figure trotted out of the petrified forest. A huge silver disc was strapped to her arm, the glare reflecting the sunlight back onto the leonines. The woman rolled the disc along beside her, it was as tall as she was. Keeping it between her and the resumed laser blasts, which ricocheted off the polished surface.

"Quick!" she yelled, a fat woman in camouflage gear. "Get behind here!"

River and the Doctor scrambled to join her as the leonines snarled and renewed their attack. River almost lost a heel to a laser blast. The woman started wheeling the disc along beside them, giving them cover back to the forest. She looked up at the sky and noted the position of the sun, the leonines advanced, dogging their trail, closing fast.

"Into the trees! Quick!" the woman yelled. River turned and took up a combat stance. The woman looked at her and smiled.

"There's no need for that." She twisted the shield against the angle of the sun, and suddenly all the leonines shrieked in fear, like terrified women. River could hear thumps and scramblings, like falling bodies.

The Doctor reached forward and yanked her back into the sharp but stony safety of the forest. Careful to yank her between the pointed branches.

The fat woman looked over her shield and smiled. She turned and the Doctor realized she was a beautiful woman, round and stout, wearing combat boots and camouflage fatigues, with a gunbelt much like River's, worn capably around her large middle.

And he couldn't hear any leonine's beyond her.

The woman grinned beautifully at his befuddled expression. She tilted the shield toward them, just enough so they could see the front of it, and see beyond it. It was mirrored. And there was no sign of any leonine beyond them, only a mass of claw-churned ground.

The woman touched a button on her armlet, and the mirrored shield collapsed and retracted back into the armlet.

"Where did they go?" the Doctor asked, unable to take his eyes off her.

She smiled confidently at him. She waved out at the former battlefield. "Leonines are terrified of their own reflections. They're the one things they see as being worse than themselves."

"Who are you?" River asked.

"I'm Cheyenne," she held out a hand. River shook it, with the nod of one warrior to another.

"Thank you!" The Doctor threw his arms around her in a hug.

Cheyenne laughed confidently and patted his back.

Over the woman's shoulder, River saw the blissful smile on the Doctor's face as he squeezed the soft, lush woman.

She frowned at that look of appreciation, and poked him in the ribs. He jumped and stumbled back, rubbing his ribs and tossing River a frown.

"So how did you know where to find us?" River asked.

"I thought we were gonners for sure!" the Doctor said. He turned out his now empty pockets mournfully.

Cheyenne pointed toward the blinking red light on the butt of River's gun. "We intercepted your distress beacon." River looked down and wryly flicked it off with a fingernail.

The woman stood up straight and saluted. "International Search and Rescue. We're here to help."

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